CRASH ! BANG ! WOLLOP WHAT A FRIDAY !!

To say I had a bad Friday the 13th is an understatement just remind me next time we have one to stay in bed!!

Last night we went merrily along to Warrington in our nice Ford Focus Estate, which incidentally will carry our family and all the camping gear we need quite happily to France. We had to go to MIL house to pick up her small car, as she is very kindly letting us use it while she is in Oman, which is a God send over the school holidays I can tell you. We thought while we were there we would do our shopping at the rather huge Tesco rather than our very small Asda and then we headed for home with me in front in the estate.

So I happily pull out of Tesco at about 9.20pm in the drizzle and about 2 minutes later I am at a huge roundabout sitting waiting for a car to pass me. Thank god at this point I checked to see if I was clear as what can only be described as a maniac was coming from the road to my right onto the roundabout at an amazing speed. All I could do was sit and watch what happened next as he hit the kerb, span round and headed towards me at speed. I was still stationery when he hit me on my drivers door, thankfully his car had spun round so that his car hit me sideways on rather than head on. Smoke started to pour out of my car and all I heard was a woman (from the car behind) shouting "It's on fire" the smell was awful (later I found out it was brake fluid). My drivers door was knackered so I climbed out of the passenger door, very quickly, and then proceeded to shake - lots! The other driver was blocked in by the front end of my car, which had stopped smoking, and he had started to fit and foam at the mouth and I didn't look to close but they were saying he had blood on his head. By this time Pete had caught up and pulled over and I just fell into his arms sobbing. The next thing I know we have sirens going everywhere and about 6 police cars, an ambulance and a fire engine turned up. I was checked over and deemed OK and then I was bundled into a police car to give details and to warm up as I only had a t-shirt on. I was given a breath test which I passed with a big fat 0 and they gave me the mouth piece to keep as a souvenir.

Time was pretty muddled up then but I am sure the other man was stuck in the car, fitting most of the time, for at least 45 minutes until the fire men could cut him out. My car is now sitting in a police pound somewhere in Warrington waiting to see if it can be fixed !!

I am still a little shaky and didn't get much sleep last night but other than that there doesn't seem much wrong. My arm feels a little heavier than normal but I presume I banged my shoulder on the window as I remember banging my head and my hip too. I don't think I hit anything hard as my tank hardly moved compared to his Saxo and there are certainly no bruises or tender parts on me.

All I can say is a huge thank you to my wonderful husband who spent hours looking cars up when we bought this one to find the safest family car he could. I wouldn't have thought to look for a car with an anti something bar in the doors but it certainly saved me last night.

I asked the police if the other bloke was going to be OK and they said he would be it just looked worse than it was and I wasn't to worry. I know it sounds harsh but I'm not, if you drive like he was you are asking for trouble and I am just so glad it wasn't me that had to be cut out and taken to hospital and that there were no children in the cars as he did have a baby seat in his.

I just have form filling, picture drawing, document producing, phone call making to look forward to now. I am going to have to try to get a courtesy car that will fit a family in with a vast amount of camping gear and get us to France and back. Wish me luck!!

Rach

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